Hector and the Search for Happiness

by Francois Lelord

Clara wasn’t home yet, because she always had meetings that finished late. She worked for a large pharmaceutical company, which produced a lot of the world’s leading drugs. The large company often amused itself by eating up smaller companies, and one day it even tried to eat up a company larger than itself, but the larger company fought it off.

  Clara’s bosses were pleased with her because she was a very conscientious hard-working girl, and they often asked her to stand in for them at meetings or sum up long reports for them, which they hadn’t time to read.

  Hector was happy to know that Clara’s bosses had faith in her, but on the other hand he didn’t like her coming home so late, often tired, and not always in a very good mood because, although her bosses depended on her a lot, they never took her along to the really important meetings with the real big shots, they went to those on their own, and made out that they were the ones who had done all the work or come up with all the good ideas.

  What a surprise, then, when Clara arrived home with a big smile on her face.

  ‘Good day?’ asked Hector, who was happy to see Clara looking so pretty and smiling.

  ‘Oh, not great, too many meetings getting in the way of work. And everybody is in a panic because the patent on our leading drug has expired. So we can kiss our profits goodbye!’

  ‘You look happy, anyway.’

  ‘All the happier for seeing you, my love.’

  And she began to laugh. You see, this was Clara’s way of jesting about love. Luckily, Hector was used to it and he knew that Clara really loved him.

  ‘Well,’ said Clara, ‘it’s true, but I’m also happy because we’ve received an invitation.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Yes, well, you’re the one invited, but I’m allowed to go with you.’

  Clara took a letter out of her briefcase and gave it to Hector.

  ‘They should really have posted it to you, but they’re aware by now that we know each other.’

  Hector read the letter. It was written by a man who was very high up in Clara’s company, one of the real big shots she didn’t meet very often. He said that he thought very highly of Hector (Hector remembered they’d shaken hands twice at conferences on psychiatry) and was relying on him to take part in a confidential meeting, where people from the company would ask his opinion on a very important matter. He hoped that Hector would agree to go, and repeated how much he appreciated him.

  Together with the letter was another piece of paper showing the place where the meeting would be held: a very pretty hotel made of wood, on a faraway island, and overlooking a magnificent beach with palm trees. Hector wondered why they had to take them so far. It was perfectly possible to reflect at home in an armchair, but he told himself that this was the company’s way of making him feel that he was important to them.

  There was a third piece of paper telling Hector that in addition to the invitation he would of course be paid for giving his opinion. When he saw the amount, he thought he’d added on a zero, but on rereading it he realised that he hadn’t, that it was right.

  ‘Hasn’t there been some mistake?’ Hector asked Clara.

  ‘No, that’s the correct amount. The others are getting the same — more or less what they asked for.’

  ‘The others?’

  She gave Hector the names of his fellow psychiatrists who had also been invited.

  Hector knew them. There was a very old psychiatrist with a bow tie who, as he grew older, had specialised in rich unhappy people (though he also occasionally saw poor people and didn’t charge them), and a funny little lady who had specialised in people who had difficulty doing what people who are in love do, and who were willing to pay crazy amounts of money in order to be able to do it.

  ‘Right, well, this will be a mini holiday for us,’ said Hector.

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Clara. ‘I’ll be seeing the same old faces I see at every meeting.’

  ‘At least we’ll be going away somewhere together for a change,’ said Hector.

  ‘We went to Italy recently!’

  ‘That was only because you had a conference there afterwards. Your job always determines everything.’

  ‘Would you prefer me to be a good little housewife and stay at home?’

  ‘No, I’d prefer you to stop letting yourself be exploited, and come home at a reasonable time.’

  ‘I bring you a piece of good news and you immediately start complaining!’

  ‘You’re the one who started it.’

  ‘No I didn’t, you did.’

  Hector and Clara carried on bickering, and finally went to bed without speaking to each other or kissing each other goodnight. Which just goes to show that love isn’t easy, even for psychiatrists.

  During the night, Hector woke up. In the dark, he found his luminous pen, which allowed him to write without waking Clara up. He noted: ‘Perfect love would be never having to argue.’

  He reflected. He wasn’t sure.

  He didn’t feel he could call his expression a ‘lesson’. Wanting to give lessons on love seemed a bit ridiculous. He thought of ‘reflection’, but it was too serious for such a simple phrase. It was only a tiny thought, like a seedling that has just sprouted and nobody knows what it will be yet. There, he’d found it. It was a seedling. He wrote:Seedling no. 1: Perfect love would be never having arguments.

  He reflected for a little bit longer; it was difficult, his eyelids kept closing. He looked at Clara who was sleeping.

  Seedling no. 2: Sometimes we argue most with the people we love most.